The Scientific Warrant for this Survey

The Focal
Research Question of this survey research project is the following: Would
either the Christian religion or selected non-Christian religions confront a crisis
or even collapse when confronted with confirmation that extraterrestrial intelligent
life (ETIL) exists? This question is important because of a widespread assumption
found frequently articulated by SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence)
scientists and other astrobiologists, namely, that the terrestrial religious traditions
with which we are familiar are subject to collapse in the face of new knowledge
regarding extraterrestrials. This assumption requires confirmation or disconfirmation.
The Peters ETI survey of religious leaders has provided relevant data for constructing
a reliable expectation.

The director
of the Center for SETI Research in Mountain View, California, Jill Tarter, articulates
the assumption that warrants further investigation. Dr. Tarter predicts confirmation
of ETIL would be devastating to terrestrial theology. The god of terrestrial religion
is our own invention, Tarter contends. It is possible to evolve and grow and get
beyond our inherited belief in God. Although to date no contact of any sort with
extraterrestrial intelligent life has occurred, Tarter can imagine myriads of planets
teeming with living beings. All will have evolved. And, if some ETI began their
evolutionary development earlier than we on earth, their technology will have progressed
further. She also imagines that these extraterrestrial societies will have achieved
a high degree of social harmony so as to support this advanced technology. And,
in addition, if ETIs have developed their own religion, it too will be more advanced
than the religions we have on earth. Or, more likely, the long-lived extraterrestrials
either never had, or have outgrown, organized religion (Tarter, 146). We can forecast,
then, that contact between earth and ETIL will necessitate the end of our inherited
religious traditions and the incorporation of a more universal worldview.

Let us try to
retrace the path of SETI reasoning that leads to such a postulate. SETI is selective.
SETI is listening to the skies in hopes of hearing a signal emitted from an extraterrestrial
intelligent source. Non-intelligent or less intelligent beings may live elsewhere
in the universe, to be sure; but the only ones likely to be sending signals are
those with advanced technology. SETI does not make judgments about ETIL in general,
but focuses rather on those intelligent beings capable of sending radio signals.
To be sophisticated enough to devise a signal emitting technology, an extraterrestrial
civilization must have been evolving for a long time. We here on earth developed
radio only a century or so ago; so if we are to make contact with ETI they must
be at least as old as we earthlings and perhaps even older. The statistical possibilities
for long evolving societies in a universe that is 13.7 billion years old are myriad;
so ETI most likely exist even if the distances are too great to be traveling from
their home to ours. Here is the logic that leads to a religious judgment: with increase
in evolutionary age comes an increase in technology; with increase in technology
comes social changes appropriate to sustaining such a technology, perhaps even a
social peacefulness that provides the stability to sustain such a technology for
thousands or millions of years. Benevolence would become a necessary ingredient
among such beings in order to prevent annihilating themselves. The disposition toward
benevolence accompanies a lengthy evolutionary history and the development of advanced
technology. Insofar as earths religious groups are prone to competition and even
violence toward one another, SETI speculators can reasonably imagine that the ETI
who make contact as post-religious or supra-religious. All this leads to the prospect
that contact with a more advanced ETI civilization would create a crisis, perhaps
even a collapse, for our existing religious belief systems on earth.

We find this train of reasoning in the work of Arizona State University physicist
and astrobiologist Paul Davies. Davies suggests that ETI will be too smart to believe
what earthlings believe. If ETI visit us, their superior supra-religious beliefs
will squash our more primitive biblical beliefs. It might be the case that aliens
had discarded theology and religious practice long ago as primitive superstition
and would rapidly convince us to do the same. Alternatively, if they retained a
spiritual aspect to their existence, we would have to concede that it was likely
to have developed to a degree far ahead of our own. If they practiced anything remotely
like a religion, we should surely soon wish to abandon our own and be converted
to theirs (Davies, 37). Michael Michaud concludes, many scientists believe that
more advanced intelligences, if they ever have organized religions, will abandon
them (Michaud, p.206).

With this as
background, it seems warranted that actual adherents to the belief systems of earths
religious traditions should be consulted to determine whether they fear that their
beliefs are in jeopardy. We tested the following hypothesis: upon confirmation
of contact between earth and an extraterrestrial civilization of intelligent beings,
the long established religious traditions of earth would confront a crisis of belief
and perhaps even collapse. The evidence gathered by the Peters ETI Religious
Crisis Survey tends to disconfirm this hypothesis.